Free Spirits Rowing

Lovely 5k and tasty little improvement - great work sir.

Well done Ron

Thanks, gents!

Nice just close enough memory!!! Great 5k!


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Couldn't help but feel my HM needed work so programmed a pace boat to my PB to see where I was..... Turns out, 30s faster

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Great result Ian and well deserved after all those long rows!!!

That's some serious chugging along for ~90 minutes, Ian!!

Thanks both

Well, I went and did it again. No plan for a PB - in fact, just a simple goal of rowing for an hour for the team challenge - but sat down to do said hour, and it just felt good starting off, so I kinda sorta negative split it to a new PB of 14795 vs previous 14622. I hate to put this in writing, but I think I could do more as it seemed like I wasn't about to die at the end... lol. In hindsight, I kind of wish I'd worn my HR monitor.

Well don Ron. This “just turn up and get a PB” approach is working well for you, and probably says a lot about the great condition you must be in at the moment.

Jon


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JonT wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 5:10 am Well don Ron. This “just turn up and get a PB” approach is working well for you, and probably says a lot about the great condition you must be in at the moment.

Thanks, Jon. Between the rowing and the mountain biking, I beat myself up a lot these days, but I'm loving it and am probably in the best aerobic shape of my life. From age 14 to about 45 or so, I was more into the musculature side of things than anything else (even though I was never huge). From 45 to last year (56), I maintained a two-day-a-week lifting routine in addition to intermittent rowing (mostly winter) and a lot of mountain biking (mostly summer). These days I'm barely touching the weights other than some light curls & shoulder presses along with some push-ups, crunches & leg lifts a couple of times a week, and it seems to be doing right by me. I quit my lifting routine almost exactly 1 year ago, because I was tired of all the niggling little injuries I kept getting - mostly joint-related.

Hi,

for fun i did something i rarely do: a one minute sprint (after my regular 1 hour training).
Ended with 325m, two more then my old pb in dec. 21.

cyparis35 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 9:29 am Hi,

for fun i did something i rarely do: a one minute sprint (after my regular 1 hour training).
Ended with 325m, two more then my old pb in dec. 21.

That's the "beauty" of the 1 min sprint. Lot's of pain for a 2m gain

And of course until the end you have absolutely no idea if a PB is on the cards. Well done!

Thank you, Jon.

For me a sprint is not realy painful - its the 2k that hurts.
When i’m done with the 2k i feel every part of the body and mind is devastated.

So i prefer better go the long and calmful distances.

But you‘re right of cource, in a sprint you only see when its done in the final result and if you reached an approvement. And of cours all time 100 percent, so no way for final speed up or strategy.

Greetings

congrats to your pbs, Ron and cyparis, one short, one longer !

The worst one, the one I said I’d never do is now a PB.



Woulda been a new PB for the half… and then things went seriously downhill until I crawled across the finish…



To make it a little more exciting, I carefully set up everything except I forgot the damper!!! I usually row on the edge of 5/6 - that yields about a 125 drag. I had intended to set it to 4 for this very long distance. But since I forgot to check it, I got the gym rat default … 10! Because if the damper isn’t on 10 you’re some kind of girly man, ya know.


210 drag factor!!! Gahhhhhhh, everything hurts.


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Rob! Dude!! I can't even imagine that. Congratulations??

Massive congratulations Rob. I have still never found the courage and determination to do this. Top tip - the 30 seconds to stop and change the damper would have been worth it, or did you only see the setting at the end??!!


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Well … of course it was evident by about the third stroke “this seems way harder than it should be” — but my personal rules for this game says no changing the damper after I’ve started. I considered starting over but it was in the auto syncing ErgData and I knew I had precisely 42195 to the clean one million, so I decided I guess it is what it is… but that last 17k I definitely felt the high drag. It was a strange thing pulling a 3:00 pace and thinking this isn’t really easier than the 2:05 I started with - I just really hadn’t done the distance work to have the long term endurance. The half marathon was hard but very consistent, I’d only lost about .3 in pace from the beginning. It’s kinda my thing - one of my favorite running marathons, I finished the half in 1:30 and was like this is great - I’ll finish this whole thing in 3:30ish — it still ended up being north of 5 hours after the 2nd half collapse.


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Awesome - but no reason you couldn't have changed the damper as you weren't in a race or at a race meet. The loss of time is barely 5 s as remember the flywheel carries on a-spinning anyway.

The back-end of that row reminds me of a few dark places I've visited in some of my ultras back in the day. Kudos for getting that one done!

Well done for sticking it out Rob - higher DF is not more difficult per se, but definitely will be if you are not used to it.
Whatever DF you use, the marathon is a test of muscular endurance and is not easy.
I can fully sympathise with your FM running experience - having done over 35 FM and beyond on the road I don't think I negatively split once - I found running an FM so much harder than rowing one because of the weight bearing factor.
I think that over 90% of the rowing FM's I did back in the day were with a negative split.

Paul G

Grabbed a couple more today. Improved my 30 Minute PB by 72M to 7616. In the process, also PB'ed my previous 6K by almost 18 Seconds. I don't know what's going on this year!

You're on a roll Ron. Enjoy them whilst you are in such a rich vein of form. Great to see.

Congrats on the PBs Ron & Rob

plummy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 28, 2022 8:51 am You're on a roll Ron. Enjoy them whilst you are in such a rich vein of form. Great to see.

Thanks, Dave (& Mat). It's somewhat cool to pull PB's as an "older gentleman", but I also realize 1) It's only because I didn't dedicate a lot of time to it when I was younger, and 2) The gains will slow and start to reverse most likely sooner than later.... , and 3) I'm still scared of shorter distances.

But, as you suggested, I'm enjoying the moment (unless it's a pain cave moment... )